Preserving This Year's Fruit For Next Year's Wine!

If you’ve ever had a fruit tree in your yard, you know the feeling of absolute overwhelm that comes with having too much fruit. There are a million ways to preserve this fruit, like canning apple butter or making jam. But if you find yourself with at least four pounds of non-citrus fruit, there’s another way to preserve your harvest: make wine!

Yes, you can turn your apples, plums, peaches, figs, cherries, blueberries, and persimmons into delicious homemade wine. I’m going to let you in on my not-so-secret recipe for winemaking. The best part? This recipe doesn’t use any headache-causing preservatives.

Homemade wine recipe

Ingredients

Four pounds of fruit (make sure to choose a non-citrus fruit)

2 pounds of sugar

1 gallon of water

1 package of wine yeast

Directions

First, prepare your fruit for freezing. This recipe doesn’t use preservatives, so freezing and boiling must be used to kill any ‘bugs’ that might get into the wine. Roughly chop your fruit and freeze it in a Ziploc bag.

Allow the fruit to freeze for at least three days.

On the fourth day, combine your 1 gallon of water and 2 pounds of sugar in a large pot. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and bring the mixture to a boil.

While the water is boiling, add your frozen fruit to a sanitized pot or ten gallon bucket.

Pour the boiling sugar water over the fruit, taking care not to burn yourself.

Let the mixture sit overnight.

The next day, stir in your wine yeast.

Let the wine must sit at room temperature for two weeks. Mash this mixture every day with a sanitized potato masher.

After two weeks, strain the fruit solids from the liquid. Store the liquid in a sanitized glass carboy for at least two months. I like to store mine in a dark closet so it’s out of the light.

After the two months are up, bottle your wine. I store mine in sanitized pop-top bottles that can be reused.

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